The Bulletin: Arts & Culture News | 5 April

NEW MUSIC: DAFT PUNK, AT THE DRIVE IN X THE FIELD, SQUAREPUSHER X GHOSTPOET, ZOMBY, POIRIER, COCOROSIE, BIBIO
Daft Punk's very brief album trailer is doing the rounds this week - their fourth studio album (not counting theTron: Legacy score) is expected on 21 May, and features collaborations with one of the French duo's idols, synth pioneer Giorgio Moroder.

The clip below features an in-depth interview with Moroder about his legacy, his contributions to the new album, and select snippets of the new material from Random Access Memories.

At The Drive-In reissued their classic early album Acrobatic Tenement in March, with a reissue of Relationship of Command slated to appear on 20 April, as part of Record Store Day. Just announced is a companion release, due out 13 May, featuring a remix of One Armed Scissor by Swedish electronica producer The Field. 

As Ghostpoet prepares to release his follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam, he has unveiled a re-working of new track Meltdown, by Warp Records maverick Squarepusher. The new album, Some Say I So I Say Light, is out on 6 May. 

Esoteric dubstep producer Zomby is preparing a follow-up to his well-received 2011 EP Nothing. Although the project is currently untitled and has no set release date, Zomby posted a teaser for the new material on YouTube this week under the title W I T H L O V E. Keep your eyes peeled on the 4AD site for announcements about the new release.

Ninja Tune-signed beatsmith Ghislain Poirier has released a new project under the moniker Boundary. The genre-hopping producer has created an album whuich nods to classic IDM and electronica, eschewing the high-BPM, dancefloor-unfriendly approach of modern IDM. The album is out now - stream it in full below.

Eclectic folk duo CocoRosie's new album Tales of a Grasswidow is out on 27 May - according to their press release, grasswidow is "an archaic term meaning an abandoned mistress." The first track to be unveiled is the electronica-inflected After the Afterlife.

Warp / Mush Records's producer Bibio has a new album dropping on 13 May, entitled Silver Wilkinson. He has shared a sampler, which you can listen to below. Speaking about the new album, Bibio said: "I don't usually have a preconceived theme for an album before I start making one, to do so would perhaps feel like a restriction further down the line, one that might inhibit natural creative flow and get in the way of new ideas." As such, we anticipate another intricate, fascinating sonic gumbo from the new album. 

LGBT HELPLINE SCOTLAND
On 7 May, Edinburgh's LGBT Centre for Health and Wellbeing are opening a new helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families, friends and supporters. The helpline will initially be available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 12pm-9pm - to speak to their trained support workers, call 0300 123 2523. 

THE FLAMING LIPS TRY TO EXPLAIN...
Following on from the deliciously strange and disturbing video for Ashes In The Air from the Heady Fwendz album, the Flaming Lips have released an interview clip about a track from forthcoming album The Terror, Try To Explain. It's the first of a series of videos where the band explain the genesis of tracks from the new album. We interviewed band leader Wayne Coyne this month - he spoke candidly about the album's intense moments. "Most of life is ambivalent and it’s only going in one direction anyway, but if you’ve ever been stuck somewhere for even a second without air, you still suddenly think ‘oh my God, I just realised how much I liked breathing!’" says Coyne. "Sometimes just getting through the day’s enough." Read the full interview here, and check out our review of The Terror here.

NEW VIDEOS: LIARS, JAMES BLAKE, STILL CORNERS
Experimental rockers Liars have unveiled their latest video, for one of the highlights from last year's WIXIW (one of our albums of 2012). The video for The Exact Colour of Doubt is directed by Markus Wambsganss, who worked with the band before on videos from Drum's Not Dead.  

James Blake's new video for the house-influenced track Voyeur, taken from his new album Overgrown, out 8 April, also features computer animation, travelling through cityscapes and atomic structures on a hypnotic inward journey. 

Still Corners, the synth-pop duo signed to Sub Pop, have also released a new video this week - the clip accompanying the track Berlin Lovers tells the story of a blossoming romance which begins at an ice rink. Their new album Strange Pleasures is out on 6 May. The band play Liverpool Sound City on 3 May, before visiting St. Philip's Church, Manchester on 5 May. 

FESTIVAL WATCH: YOKO ONO'S MELTDOWN, MIDI FESTIVAL, FIELD DAY, BENICASSIM, LIVERPOOL SOUND CITY
This year's Meltdown (14-23 Jun), the 20th annual festivgal, is being curated by Yoko Ono, and takes place at The Southbank Centre in London. Tickets go on sale on 9 April. Featured artists include Siouxsie, Kim Gordon, Reggie Watts, the Plastic Ono Band, Iggy and the Stooges, Immortal Technique, Patti Smith, Savages, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Marianne Faithfull and Bill Frisell, Cibo Matto, Peaches and Boy George. 

The first round of acts for this year's MIDI Festival (26-28 Jul) have been confirmed - the festival, which takes place on the beautiful French Riviera, will welcome The Horrors, Mount Kimbie, Peter Hook & the Light, Alunageorge, King Krule, Mykki Blanco and others. Details and tickets here.

Field Day (25 May) has added a few more acts to its roster - joining the likes of Bat For Lashes, Django Django and CHVRCHES at the one-day event held in London's Victoria Park will be Ben Pearce, Bok Bok & Girl Unit, BBC Introducing's Jen Long, Lil Silva, Psychemagik, Todd Edwards and Waze & Odyssey. Details and tickets here. 

Spain's enormous Benicassim (18-21 July) bill has swollen even further with the addition of Beach House, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Rudimental, And So I Watch You From Afar and Attic Lights, who join the likes of Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, Queens Of The Stone Age and La Roux. Details and tickets here.

Liverpool Sound City (2-4 May) has also added a few choice morsels to its bill - their conference and workshop strand has just been announced in full, with participation from industry heavyweights such as soundtrack supervisor John Bissell; digital brand manager for Hospital Records, Matt Riley; Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl in conversation with The Wombats, Enter Shikari lecturing on Marxism, and most impressively, Rolling Stones supremo Andrew Loog Oldham, who will give a keynote speech. These talks, workshops and panels take place against the background of a busy showcase festival, with performances from the likes of Noah and the Whale, Dexy's, Mount Kimbie, Oneohtrix Point Never and many more. Details and tickets here, and watch out for our feature on Liverpool Sound City in our Northwest edition!

COLLECTIVE'S SATELLITES PROGRAM: DEADLINE NEARS
Now settling down after their move to Calton Hill last summer, arts organisation Collective are running an open submission forum for artists as part of their new Satellites Program, a replacement for the New Work Scotland exhibitions they have organised in previous years. The submission deadline for artists and ractitioners is 15 April. Eligibility is for practitioners and interns, based in Scotland who are not represented by a gallery and are either in their final year (undergraduate or postgraduate); or who have graduated and are up to six years out of college or university, to practitioners without a degree or those who have not had a major opportunity in Scotland in the last four years, and writers who have not had a major publishing opportunity. For more details, visit the Collective website.

MILAN'S VERTICAL FOREST
In Milan, Stefan Boeri Architects have created a visionary new building which could have far-reaching consequences for town planners, civil engineers and architects looking to optimise green space and proliferate carbon-reducing plant-life in big cities. Their creation, the Bosco Verticale or 'vertical garden' is a tenement which behaves like a park. The two buildings will incorporate over 900 trees between them, pumpuing out clean air into the Milanese skyline. So-called 'grey water' from sinks and water outlets in the buildings will irrigate the trees. See more photos of the project at the Collective Evolution site.

HUEY LEWIS RE-ENACTS HUEY LEWIS SCENE FROM AMERICAN PSYCHO
Finally, we leave you with the funniest clip we've seen all week - Huey Lewis recreating the famous Huey Lewis scene from American Psycho, with Weird Al Yankovic, on the website Funny Or Die. Full marks to Lewis for not taking himself too seriously - still the hippest square around, if not the squarest hipster.